On Friday 16th the email arrives and looks very encouraging it says:

"GET BT INTERNET WITH SURFTIME NOW ....
After you've placed your order with BT for SurfTime then come back to the BT Internet Home page to change your BT Internet account. To ensure you don't lose any of your existing account features by changing to BT Internet with SurfTime, e.g. your BT Internet email address you must change your account via the 'my account' button on the homepage and then select 'How do I change my payment plan?' alternatively click here now
http://register.btinternet.com/cgi-bin/chprodbegin"

So I did that and entered my details on the screen which said:

"Change of Tariff Option will take place at the end of your current monthly or annual charging period."

That took me to a screen where I could choose BT Internet with SurfTime and I got this response:

"Oops! Sorry, you may not change from your current tariff to this tariff combination. Please go back and re-select.
---------------------------------------------

Any questions or problems

If you have any queries at any stage, please don't hesitate to contact the BT Internet technical Helpdesk on 0906 302 3456. This helpdesk is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and calls are charged at 50p a minute. A 5p minimum call charge applies."

So I ring the expensive helpline - only to be told that I should be ringing Billing. Irritated and a £1 worse off, I start getting queued for Billing (having already been queued for the 50p a minute helpdesk I didn't need.

When I finally got through to Billing what do they say??? - "Sorry sir, the option to change your current BTInternet account to SurfTime will not be ready for two or three weeks yet"

So what was the email for I asked, "sorry sir I don't know". Why on earth was I sent an email asking me to use a service which isn't ready yet!!!!!

If you've read this far (and, of course, BT Support staff will have read this far because it is their job to do so) what does all this add up to?

It adds up to a shoddy, incompetent service from a company - sorry two companies, that should know how to do better than this. Whilst capable of plastering the entire country with expensive posters advertising a service, can they deliver it??? No, of course not!! Unfortunately this is a standard of service, or rather non-service, we have had to get used to - particularly with BT Internet.

What is worse, the managers and senior staff responsible for these cock-ups hide behind the ground troops, under-paid, over-worked call centre or Internet support staff, who have to deal with irate customers like myself. If one asks to be put through to a manager, or to get a more senior response, one is almost always fobbed off with a 'someone will call you' and they almost never do.

It is not just BT Internet, BT are nearly as bad. I was appalled by the extent to which BT / Cellnet covered up for the now collapsed First Telecom of Cardiff and Swansea, when they were selling mobile phones by telling lies, pretending to be BT, getting credit card details and failing to cancel telephone accounts on request.

Now both BT and BT Internet appear to be involved in a "call our 50p a minute help-line for problems that they can do nothing about and are of our own making" scam. If only they were that intelligent - of course it isn't a scam, it is just another piece of total incompetence. Except, as usual, the worse, and more incompetent BT Internet and BT are over providing these services the more money they make. Every dropped connection by BT Internet - means another connection charge to BT. The longer BT Internet delay providing a Surftime service the more money BT make by charging BT Internet customers who should be getting free connections. The companies and their common shareholders always win. The customer always loses.

I write all of this much more in sorrow than in anger - though I am angry. Much of my livelihood and lifestyle depends on reliable service from these two BT companies. I really really want them to get it right and to charge me less. I know they are big enough and have the resources to overcome these difficulties. So why oh why do they get it wrong so often and why oh why are they so slow to apologise and find real ways to make amends?

Bob

ps If you are one of the ground troops please pass this email on to your managers!